


Night Watch

by divingforstones



Category: Lewis (TV)
Genre: Lewis Summer Challenge 2014, M/M, illicit purloining of health service property, mutinous sergeants, stubborn inspectors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-28
Updated: 2014-08-28
Packaged: 2018-02-15 03:25:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2214030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/divingforstones/pseuds/divingforstones
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I’m reporting you to Innocent for insubordination. First thing Monday morning. I’ll have you transferred.”</p><p>“On what grounds, sir?” James asks, sounding interested rather than chastened, the cheeky sod.</p><p>“Failure to obey a direct order.”</p><p>“She’ll definitely want to know what the direct order was, then,” James says agreeably.</p><p>And Robbie sees the quandary. <i>I tried to kick Sergeant Hathaway out of me bedroom in the early hours of Saturday morning, ma’am, and he just wouldn’t go…”</i></p><p>Over the course of one long hot summer's night, James Hathaway takes on the rather self-appointed task of carrying out orientation checks on an unappreciative Robbie Lewis.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Night Watch

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to [](http://wendymr.livejournal.com/profile)[**wendymr**](http://wendymr.livejournal.com/) for such helpful, honest and kind beta work. Thanks to [](http://lindenharp.livejournal.com/profile)[](http://lindenharp.livejournal.com/)**lindenharp** for supplying a very helpful description of Robbie Lewis cursing in his native vernacular.

 

 

 **Night Watch** ****

Robbie has been trying to convince them all that he was just taking a moment. He’d had the breath knocked out of him and it was a shock.

But James is absolutely, unreachably adamant that after the fall there was a long moment when his boss was still and unmoving on the ground. No, he wasn’t there exactly, he explains reasonably, he was a fair bit further down the path at the time, but he’d seen Inspector Lewis go down and he’s quite sure that that’s what happened. He frowns over the doctor’s shoulder at something in the distance, evades Robbie’s glare of disbelief and continues to politely repeat that he thinks Inspector Lewis was briefly knocked out, actually, until Robbie wants to get him alone and shake some sense into him.

First, shortly after they get back to the station, he inexplicably blabs within earshot of Innocent, of all ruddy people, about Robbie’s non-event of a fall— _M_ _ustn’t have seen her there, sir_ —and gets them sent to A&E right when they should have been starting to wind down the day for that sorely-needed Friday evening pint. Meaning that Robbie is now submitting, with bad grace, to being held for a few consecutive sets of hourly observations for his non-existent concussion. Then, early on in the process, James politely suggests that: “Well, you might not remember if you had been knocked out, sir—because you would’ve been knocked out.”

After Robbie’s reaction to _that_ little gem, James has wisely found something to do with himself, wandering around outside, out of Robbie’s restricted orbit, between the nurses’ visits. He just pops up like clockwork every time someone in a uniform comes near Robbie, to neatly refute everything Robbie is trying to tell them. It’s a bloody waking nightmare.

Robbie’s not getting very far with the nursing staff. He’s tried telling the rather maternal nurse currently assigned to him that he has a head like an anvil. That’s only elicited the sort of slightly frowning, assessing look from her that suggests he’s made her even more inclined to believe James’s version of events now. He’s tried telling her in his best confiding tones, when James is over fighting with the vending machine, that the lad tends to worry a bit about his old governor. That’s only produced an indulgent smile from her in James’s direction. Robbie wishes James had caught that smile. He wouldn’t have much liked it.

When the doctor mentions that he doesn’t need to be admitted, with the proviso that he has someone to stay with him tonight, Robbie sees an escape route at last, and he momentarily forgets his ire. Lucky that James can promise to be that someone, really. There’s no need for it to actually happen, but if James continues to be so utterly bloody wrongheaded about all this, then maybe a night on Robbie’s couch will help him come to his senses. Although—James never seems to actually mind folding his long self to sleep within the confines of Robbie’s couch.

It’s been a very long evening.

Robbie watches as James listens to the doctor’s comments about signs of disorientation and wonders abstractly why his sergeant has gone into his focused, intent listening mode right now.

Turns out that should’ve been his first clue.

 

Midnight:

“What the hell?” Robbie hadn’t actually thought he’d go through with it.

“I said, can you tell me your name, sir?”

“Sod off, sergeant.”

“Oh, that’s mature, sir.”

Robbie hoists himself up slightly on his pillows and peers at his sergeant, who’s materialised sitting on the side of his bed. Most of Robbie’s bedroom is still in darkness. But James must have switched on the lamp in the interior hall of the flat and it’s casting a pathway of light through the part-open door, throwing the rest of the room into shadow.

James, apparently just sitting there awaiting an answer to his daft question, is backlit. The lamplight makes a fuzzy golden halo of that hair that he’s either let grow in recently or failed to get cut.  Probably the former with James—it’s usually too sort of artfully dishevelled to be an accident, even Robbie can discern that _._ It’s been getting right distracting, that hair on James, though, whenever it does get properly tousled—it keeps raising a frustratingly elusive memory in Robbie’s head, a vision of his sergeant looking all tousled like that early one morning, that he can’t quite place. James never looks tousled of a morning, he always looks all neatly reined in. Robbie must be picturing him from the aftermath of some all-nighter they’d pulled, he supposes. Not in James’s periodically more shorn days, and not quite recently but further back a bit.

It’s a somehow vivid picture that nudges away at the edge of Robbie’s thoughts, these days, in inopportune moments, whenever James, thinking, rakes his hand back through his styled hair, thoroughly messing it up. It feels like a clue, lately, that it’s somehow important to try and line up that picture of James with the exact memory it belongs with, the sort of clue that might shed light on some of the odd notions that tend to crop up in Robbie’s mind in relation to his sergeant.

James isn’t looking reined in now, either. All he’s wearing is a white t-shirt with white boxers. And Robbie’s woken to find that James has settled himself sitting close enough so that, as he shifts slightly, Robbie’s hand brushes lightly against both the firm warmth of James’s thigh and the soft cotton edge of those boxers.

The combination of the lamplit hair, and James’s part-shadowed features _,_ thrown into strange relief, makes it feel like waking to a midnight visitation from a very tall, very stubborn, extremely bloody irritating, ministering angel.

“James. You can leave me be now. I was _asleep_ _._ ”

“Yes, and I do recognise that your slumber is sacred to you, sir, but so is ensuring your wellbeing. In fact, I’d suggest it takes precedence. And Dr Hobson said—”

“What? Laura?”

“I thought I’d just get a second opinion.”

“You thought _what?_ ”

“I texted her. And she said that the best way to check that someone’s not disorientated is to ask them simple questions with discrete definite answers. Like their name. She wanted to know what you’ve been doing to yourself this time. Told me you made a bit of a habit of this in your sergeant days. Enquired whether we enjoyed a pleasant Friday evening together in A&E. Sends her regards for a speedy recovery, sir.”

Christ, they’re ganging up on him now. “All right, sergeant, you’ve had your fun. You can head home now.”

“See you shortly, sir.”

“What?”

“On the hour, every hour.”  James reveals his intentions gravely.

“She’d’ve meant once or twice!”

“Yes, but then I looked it up online and I concluded that the absolutely safest course of action—”

 _“James.”_ But James doesn’t move or respond. There’s something about the set of his silhouetted shoulders that suddenly gives Robbie pause. He’s not actually serious about all this, is he? And before Robbie can recover his stream of thought, James has risen and is retreating out the door.

Robbie turns over, telling himself that of course that was all just a wind-up _._ Of course it was. James is obviously having some difficulty getting to sleep himself and he thought he’d throw a parting shot in this bizarre argument that neither of them seem willing to back down from. That’s all it is. Well, he can have the last word if it’s that bloody important to him. It’s been a long and frustrating week. Robbie is going to _sleep._

 

 

1am:

Something very strange is happening with the light. It’s distilled itself into a bright piercing pinpoint which is wavering from one eye to another. That’s disorientating in itself—Oh, now where the hell did he even _get_ that?

“Oi, stop that with the torch, Florence Nightingale.” This is a bit far to go for a wind-up.

“Can you tell me your name, sir?”

“Oh, for—” Curiosity takes over. “That’s a proper doctor’s one. When did Laura give you that? She supplying you with instruments of torture now, to torment me with in me sleep?”

James sounds a little shifty. “The doctor who examined you. He may have left it down a moment when he was writing your discharge note.”

Robbie is scandalised. “That’s NHS property, man!”

“I’ll send it back to them when I’m done with it,” James confides.

“You’re done with it right about now, sergeant, believe you me.” Christ, he must’ve been entirely too soft with his bagman over the years. What Morse would’ve done to Robbie, if Robbie had woken him twice, _twice_ in one night just to prove a flaming point…

But Robbie’s never been that great at standing on ceremony with James even at the best of times.

And now, in the summer-night warmth of his bedroom, a mild breeze through his open window lifts the curtain slightly, to briefly bestow further oddly-dispersed light on them from the streetlamp outside. James’s warmth presses silently, agreeably, against Robbie. And James just sits there, silently too, as Robbie gazes at him, half-drowsily still, trying to pick up the cues to work this one out.

James’s face has always been one that you could study for an age anyway and still not work out what makes him look so—interesting. And his head tilted quizzically at Robbie like this makes you picture that engaging way he has of turning his focus straight on you even when he’s just delivering the most seemingly-casual of dry responses, in that way that makes you feel for a moment that you’re the one person whose opinion most matters to him—well, even as he disputes or bloody well takes exception to your actual opinions.

It’s no wonder that Robbie gets the strangest feeling of helplessness sometimes when his sergeant really digs his heels in. He knows he’ll be sunk the day James ever detects that _._ But one o’clock in the morning? Time to pull rank. “I’m reporting you to Innocent for insubordination. First thing Monday morning. I’ll have you transferred.”

“On what grounds, sir?” James asks, sounding interested rather than chastened, the cheeky sod.

“Failure to obey a direct order.”

“She’ll definitely want to know what the direct order was, then.”

Robbie sees the quandary. _I tried to kick Sergeant Hathaway out of me bedroom in the early hours of Saturday morning, ma’am, and he just wouldn’t go…_

And while that dilemma gives him pause James is up and gone again, padding barefoot across Robbie’s carpet and announcing his departure with a firm click of the door closing behind him.

He’ll have to tire of this soon, surely. Very soon. Surely.

By mutual, unspoken consent they had ceased to refer to Robbie’s stint in A&E as soon as they were back in James’s car this evening. Well, not much had been said on the car journey to Robbie’s, one way or another. James must have been well overtired himself, after the week they’ve had, which is obviously why he can’t get to sleep now. He’d been right jumpy tonight, too. It was no wonder, really.

The case they’d been battling against for days had finally worn itself down to a weary, depressing close. It had turned into the kind of case that made you wonder what senseless sort of non-justification the next person would come up with to take a life and ruin that many in the process. And if that’s the thought that had come into Robbie’s head—well, God knows James has far more trouble moving on from anything like that than Robbie does. But any clumsy attempt, over their late supper tonight, to get out of him what was up had been doomed to failure, what with James’s misdirections—“ _Nothing’s up with me, sir, I’m not the one who’s had a fall,_ ”—Oh, bloody hell—and Robbie’s own frustrated disinclination to raise the topic again after that little dig.

And then every time Robbie had shifted, or had given so much as a sigh, as they’d sat watching an hour of late-night television, before giving up on tonight as a rather bad job—James had turned to frown at him. It was well bloody irritating. When Robbie had just let his head drop back against the top of his couch, in rather restless frustration at the way this evening had turned out, James had started and sat up straight for a moment himself, ruddy well staring at him. He just wasn’t the restful, amusing presence Robbie usually found him to be when he was here of an evening.

Well, all right, so he’s had a hard week. Not really fair to expect him to be the best company. But generally, even in the aftermath of the worst days, each of them can somehow manage to find a kind of solace in the undemanding company of the other. And tonight this argument, like some insidious, incompatible presence, has somehow shoved itself right in the way of that. So James is still coming down off this frustrating case and Robbie hadn’t quite allowed enough leeway for that. James could probably have done with a quiet pint himself at the Trout and must’ve been frustrated to find himself stuck, as his governor’s ride home, in the depressing maelstrom that was A&E at the Radcliffe as a Friday night wore on. Robbie should probably have put his foot down and sent him off home sooner.

He’ll just have to try and bear with him now until he calms down a bit. Even if he does get woken again. Robbie's sure he can do that. He can restrain himself. Stay patient until James gets this out of his system and dozes off himself. Well, fairly sure. Well—he’ll try.

 

 

2am:

“Fucking hell.” And, finding that’s really not sufficient to relieve his feelings, Robbie proceeds to exercise his vocabulary in a combination of new and half-remembered phrases, finding words that he hasn’t shaped his mouth around since his days as a young man in Newcastle suddenly coming back to him in an effortless stream.

James, his head lifting in the dark as he listens, sounds impressed and not a little surprised by the breadth of Robbie’s vocabulary: “What exactly _is_ paggered?” he enquires. “What’s a stott?” And then, in the face of Robbie subsiding to indecipherable muttering: “Must find an online dictionary of Geordie invective,” he resolves to himself. “Very—educative, sir. And if you could tell me your name?”

And people tell Robbie _he’s_ stubborn?

“It’s sir,” Robbie says shortly.

“Oh, that’s hilarious. Very droll.”

“Well, that’s what _you_ seem to think it is.” All right, that’s come out even more miffed than Robbie intended. But this question, the question of his name—well, it’s beyond annoying for reasons that have nothing to do with being woken. Again. “I’ll tell you my name if you’ll use it.”

“What?” Well, that’s surprised him.

“You did for a bit there, and now you’ve stopped. Gone back to sir.”

“Well, we stayed on in the job, after all, didn’t we? Occupational hazard.”

“I don’t mean in work. Why’d you go back to sir off-duty?” _Right when Laura and I broke up. That’s when you stopped calling me Robbie._ It’s been bothering Robbie on and off for months. More so, recently. Sometimes there are moments when it seems James uses it to put himself back into Sergeant Hathaway mode. Or worse—to put Robbie firmly back into his place as James’s governor, it feels like. Purely unnecessarily. When he’s just being James and then he all of a sudden pulls himself back.

There’d been a frustrating moment like that a couple of weeks back, in the car park at the Old Victoria, when they’d been walking to their cars after a peaceable pint together. Well, not exactly a pint, they’d both been driving, but it’d been nice to fit in an hour or so anyway, late on a still-bright summer evening, when they’d finally escaped the nick. It was always nice to put a bit of space between work and heading back to the flat, like that. Always settled Robbie a bit after a stressful day. Funny how you can spend most of your waking hours with a bloke, and yet still feel like going for an after-work pint with him, Robbie had been musing.

And James, who had been thoroughly amusing Robbie this evening with what he’d been periodically showing him on that ruddy phone that he’s always treated like a little computer, had taken Robbie’s elbow as Robbie went to open the door of his car, still looking at his little screen, and held Robbie, his hand warm through Robbie’s shirt sleeve, while he scrolled down with his thumb to show him one last thing.

Robbie didn’t quite understand why in the world Gurdip and this other lad would somehow be texting each other that publicly on this twittering thing anyway, or quite what they were on about, never mind how James had even found this. But Gurdip, who was as dryly sardonic as James out of work, it looked like, was certainly winning in a wry war of words. And he was dead funny.

Then James had raised his head and grinned his sudden direct grin, straight at Robbie and when Robbie was surprised into a slow smile of appreciation right back at him, his expression had suddenly changed. He’d let go of Robbie’s arm too suddenly and it was all: _“Must find a way to drop that one into conversation next time we need an IT consult, sir,_ ” and “ _Good night, sir_ ” and off he went, exiting stage left abruptly again, just like he keeps doing tonight, come to think of it. Demoting Robbie back to sir. And leaving him feeling slightly—thwarted. Frustrated, really. To be one moment pulled a little and held a little closer to James, it had felt like, and then pushed so firmly back.

“Well, sometimes it’s just habit.” James is explaining now. “Sir seems to fit better with what I’m saying.”

“And the rest of the time?” Robbie enquires.

“Just—easier, I suppose. On me,” James mutters. Robbie feels the weight lift off the edge of the mattress _._ “See you an hour. Robbie,” he delivers over his shoulder as he departs once more.

Robbie. Now he’s saying Robbie in the same tone as he does _sir_ when he’s making a smart rejoinder. It’s a rather sharp disappointment. Turns out he must’ve wanted James to say _Robbie_ in the way that he did for a little bit there—like he really liked the sound of it.

Why _would_ he want to push that bit of distance between them anyway, right when Robbie and Laura broke up? Ruddy strange time to do it. Why would he be all right to start using Robbie’s name, like he’d been told to, and being that bit more relaxed and friendly when Robbie and Laura were together? And then, a few months back, as soon as Robbie had told him that he and Laura had finally recognised that their longstanding friendship suited both of them better than trying to turn that into something more—then James had started to pull back that little bit again. Even while he’d offered rueful sympathy, and began to spend more time out of work hours with Robbie too.

He’ll think Robbie doesn’t notice. Robbie does. He knows full well whenever there’s a shift in the distance between him and James, even when he doesn’t know why. The lines James had drawn in the sand when Robbie was with Laura have shifted again, the boundaries redrawn on James’s mental map of how far he lets Robbie in. And now, every time he slips back into that relaxed state with Robbie, it’s like he then catches himself on and pulls up again. It feels like he’s now re-erecting his defences right while he also seeks Robbie out more. Like it’s _thus far and no further_ somewhere in his impenetrable head. Christ, he’s such a contrary, contradictory sod.

And hold on _—What_ was that last bit? See him in an hour? He’s still not done with this tomfoolery? What’s _at_ him? For James to actually ignore Robbie to this extent, something’s got to have hit on a sore spot, triggered all that stubborn immovableness _._ Something more specific than him being stirred up by this case. Had Robbie maybe argued harder and sharper than he’d meant to about this? James was just being so infuriatingly obtuse. But maybe Robbie had somehow gone a bit too far. He needs to curb his tongue at times when he gets riled up. He’ll sound him out, so, when James gets back, pacify him a bit if need be. Well, that’s if he comes back; maybe he’s got it out of his system now, just as Robbie's worked out what’s wrong.

Robbie may have to smooth things over in the morning a bit instead.

 

 

3am:

“You’re bloody lucky we’re not armed policemen, sergeant,” Robbie mutters into his pillow. It’s not actually true. Swimming up out of sleep to James’s presence hasn’t startled him. Maybe it should—James has never been in Robbie's bedroom until tonight. But these nocturnal awakenings to James settling alongside him somehow don’t feel all that strange.

Must be that used to having the lad right close by him after all these years on the job now. Still, though, wouldn’t do to betray that to James. Hellbent as he is on making his flaming point.

But what it actually feels like at this slightly surreal, half-waking stage of the night is rather intriguing. Having James shifting slightly against him, on the bed, in the warm, enclosing dark. Robbie has been half-drowsing rather pleasantly now, in a vague awareness that his sergeant may be coming back. And now, as Robbie shifts just a little bit, settling in for a fresh round of this strange back-and-forth in the early hours, his thigh, through the cool cotton sheet that covers him, presses against James’s firm corresponding warmth.

Curiosity is starting to override Robbie’s other feelings here.

Odd dreamlike images have been surfacing in his mind as he turns over, briefly half-waking during the past hour—odd images of waking to find James maybe _in_ the bed—what that would be like. Finding the very real James suddenly here beside him again makes Robbie rather want to reach out and take hold of him and just see what it _would_ feel like—

He must be seriously sleep-deprived. Or else he actually is concussed. He’s always been a curious sod himself, but he has no right thinking thoughts like that about his young, half-clad, sleep-rumpled sergeant. Especially when he knows full well that one of the things that makes James go into one of his withdrawals these days is when he realises he’s touching Robbie in any sort of lingering fashion, or just sitting comfortably against him. It’s confusing. He could swear James has been touching him even more—well, it’s undeniably always been pleasantly comfortable, that unquestioning lack of physical boundaries between them—but recently it’s been making Robbie feel he shouldn’t be enjoying that at all, when James so suddenly reacts against it.

The way he’s relaxing against Robbie tonight in the dark, in his old familiar fashion, is a welcome, unambiguous break from that confusion.

“What did you tell Innocent on Monday when you sent me out of the office?”

And he’s changed the question. Robbie is suddenly taken from his pleasantly relaxed state of half-contemplations into one of full alert. He’s wide awake, in fact. He lets his eyes drift shut and attempts to conceal that. “Hmm-mmm?” he tries vaguely.

Something in the quality of the silence that meets him tells him that James is not fooled. He opens his eyes. Hadn’t expected this one to come back and bite him in the backside in his own bedroom at an ungodly hour of the morning, had he?

“That could be personal, sergeant.”

“It’s not.” James is positive.

“And what makes you so sure?”

James changes his voice to a rough approximation of a Geordie accent. “Sergeant, might’ve left tha’ file in the car after all, come te think of it. Go an’ check, would ye?” Robbie blinks at him in the dark. “It was a rubbish effort, sir,” James says feelingly.

“So’s your ruddy accent—”

“You only thought of it on the spur of the moment to get rid of me. Right after she turned me down for leave, incidentally.”

Robbie gives it up as a bad job. “I may have just suggested she bear in mind that the last time you tried going to one of your music festivals was a fair while back and you were rudely interrupted by the call of duty.”

“And did that conversation go well for you, sir?” James enquires gravely.

“About as well as you might expect.”

“She did say she’d be left short if she granted any more leave for that Friday.” James’s tone is curious.

“Yeah. Well. You don’t ask for much, really, do you, lad. Thought she could’ve been a bit less sharp to turn you down.”  Although truth to tell, it was more the touch of resignation on James’s face than Innocent’s actual refusal that had suddenly somehow made Robbie disproportionately frustrated and prompted the impulsive, rather pointless attempt to let his feelings be known.

“And did you share your thoughts about the unwarranted promptness of her refusal with our Chief Superintendent too?” James is asking now, amused at the prospect.

“Sort of.”

“Fuck.” James’s expressions are that familiar that Robbie reckons he can almost see those eyebrows elevate in the dark.

“Yeah,” Robbie says ruefully. “She said Sergeant Hathaway seemed to have a perfectly eloquent tongue in his own head the last time she’d checked. And the full use of it too. She asked whether I thought you’d mistakenly chosen CID under the impression it was a regular nine to five job.  And, if so, whether the intervening years since joining the force had not perhaps disabused you, in all your intelligence, of that notion. Then she strongly suggested that I bear in mind that I could delegate less of my own paperwork if I was so commendably concerned about your work-life balance _.”_

Come to think of it, Innocent probably hadn’t much enjoyed turning down that rare request from an overworked Sergeant Hathaway either. It hadn’t really been Robbie’s most tactful intervention.

He can hear a note of mock-gratitude in James’s voice as he rises from the bed again. “Well, I’m touched that you would defend my honour, sir. And fall on your own sword, so to speak. I shall be forever in your debt.”

“In that case—”

“No, sir, see you in an hour, sir.”

But James is turning into the path of light coming through the door and Robbie doesn’t miss the beginnings of that small genuine, private smile starting to turn the corners of his mouth up as he leaves. The daft sod.

And he’s joking now, about it, though _,_ surely. He seems well settled at last. Just like that. Ah, why’s he always have to be so pleased at the least little thing that you try and do for him?

And it’s a good thing, obviously, if James doesn’t come back tonight now, doesn’t disturb Robbie again by settling down beside him, his comfortable warm weight moving the mattress under Robbie's body like that, to peacefully announce his return and his own hip, right beside Robbie's hip, brushing against Robbie’s like that as he makes himself comfortable in the dimly lit room, ready with his odd questions. It’s obviously a good thing if there’s no more of _that_ tonight. Sleep. Sleep is good. Necessary. Sleep is necessary.

And it’s always been rather nicer drifting off to sleep on those nights when he has a comfortable awareness of someone’s nearby presence.  Robbie reckons he was never quite meant to be a solitary creature himself.

Although it’s not just anyone, is it, who has that effect. The last few years it’s invariably been James. He lands up crashing on the couch after a late night brainstorming on a case they’re tussling with, or after a relaxed evening drinking beer. And then there he’ll be in the morning, always up early enough to insist you eat breakfast properly, making himself amusingly at home in the way that he does when he forgets himself because he’s on some mission, and tutting over the apparent lack of sufficient variety of vegetables or herbs or something to make his omelettes perfect— _Yes, I can see you have actually shopped, sir, and that’s a very welcome development, believe me, but have you ever considered what goes together? It’s like being on one of those cookery challenges, where you have to create something from a few unrelated ingredients, being in your kitchen._ Cheeky bugger. Ruddy nice omelettes, though.

Does make the whole day tend to develop that bit better, when he starts it like that with his sergeant.

 

 

4am:

Ah, Christ almighty. And that had been such a comfortable, restful sleep he’d fallen into. Even when someone’s murdered, you only get woken the once, Robbie reasons incoherently.  He scrambles for his phone to tell Laura to call off the monster she’s created, but catches sight of the time and drops it again in frustration.

“Can’t really disturb the good doctor at this hour, unfortunately, can we now?” James’s voice asks sympathetically.

Robbie growls at him, reconsidering whether in fact he could. “She’ll have been woken worse times than this before.”

“Yeah, but you’d only do that to her for a case.”

“I dunno, lad, you keep this up and we’ll soon have ourselves our very own crime scene here.” He reckons he could sense that particular smirk in the pitch dark, as James props himself up on his arm, seemingly in no hurry to leave, the side of his hand against Robbie’s. “Why’d you text her this evening, anyway?”

“I told you—second opinion. He seemed a bit young and inexperienced, your doctor. Don’t think he should’ve discharged you that fast—”

“No, come on, why’d you do it?”

“She should know that you’ve been in hospital. Surely?”

“I wasn’t in hospital, I was just—visiting. And why would Laura have such an urgent need to know that we’d spent a few hours squabbling in A an’ E?”

“Dunno what you were doing, sir _,_ but I certainly wasn’t squabbling.”

“James. Why do you do that, eh? Sort of— push—at me and Laura every time you think we’re drifting closer. Like you’re watching to see what’ll happen. And then do the same if you pick up we’re drifting apart?” The combination of his doing both has always made Robbie—fret a bit. No other word for it.

There is such a deep and resounding silence that Robbie’s ears start to tune in to the hum of the fridge in the kitchen.

“Must want you to be happy,” comes a slow voice, eventually, through the dark. “Strangely enough. She’d be good for you, Dr Hobson.”

And Robbie’s frustration at being pushed back towards talking about Laura when he’s trying to get a handle on James, on what James has been doing recently, suddenly swells into an effort to try and get some sense out of him. “That’s hardly a solid basis for a relationship—that she’d be good for me. Christ, anyone could say that about you. I mean—I tell you to stop off so I can get takeaway when you’re dropping me home and you stop off to buy fresh stuff and come in and cook properly for me again instead. An’ I just suggest a pub lunch and you make us take the river walk along to the Trout too. It’s like I have an idea an’ you go and expand it into something more—”

But James is suddenly up and gone, rising so abruptly from the bed that Robbie feels the slight imbalance of his departure.

Robbie instinctively levers himself upright, even before he starts to try and process what there is amongst that to upset him that much. James is the one who’s always joking about this stuff—he’s the one telling Laura about pain and suffering being the basis of a happy marriage with Robbie and then, back when he’d been with young Fiona: _we were even discussing how I was going to break up with you, sir._

Can dish it out but not take it, so.

But he’d seemed actually bothered there. And he _does_ do all those things—he makes Robbie do better, healthier stuff and in the process somehow expands the time they’d have spent together too, even while Robbie is vaguely aware that he should be watching he doesn’t make assumptions about taking up too much of his sergeant’s hard-earned leisure.

Because time spent with James—well, it _has_ just been going that bit differently recently. Better. The last few months, an after-work drink with James has changed from something that one of them has casually suggested when they’ve started shutting up shop for the evening to something that Robbie’s thoughts turn towards at odd moments during the day—moments amongst the daily grind when he catches sight of James across the office and pictures sitting with him later, contemplating the river and their pints. The thought of relaxing into his sergeant’s company gives Robbie an undeniable lift.

And yet he knows he has no right to expect any more from James than he has—it already frets Robbie that James hasn’t got someone properly in his life. He’d tried pushing him towards Fiona McKendrick, when he’d found out what was happening there. He’s tried telling him that he needs a partner, someone in his life. Well, that hadn’t gone down too well, maybe not the best thing to say or a clumsy way to say it but—well, it’s not exactly unlike the way James pushes Robbie towards Laura either, is it?

And as he sits upright in bed, rather lost in his thoughts, Robbie gradually becomes aware of a presence right there in the still lit hallway. James has come back and is staying back a bit, almost around the corner, a barely-there half-figure, half-shadow bisected by the doorframe. With the angle of his head keeping his expression completely withheld from Robbie.

His voice sounds almost reluctant, when he speaks, as if the question is being somehow pulled from him. “So which are you doing now, you and Dr Hobson? Are you drifting closer together? Or drifting apart?”

Robbie bends his own head forward a little, in a vain effort to get a better look at him. “We’re not drifting anywhere, lad. We’ve come to rest. In separate harbours.”  He’s not great at metaphors, so he’s rather pleased with that one. Although he's also expecting James to outdo him with a poetic discourse on oceans or tides or no man being an island. Or a concise lecture on why he should’ve said port instead of harbour perhaps. Something along a maritime theme, anyway. Something that makes him—well, come back really.

But James doesn’t return. Only his voice comes back to Robbie, “You failed that orientation test, sir. The answer to any question about you and Dr Hobson, that’s meant to be _none of your business, sergeant.”_

And in rebuke to the lightness of the words, his voice sounds strained now. Worse than that. There’s a note almost of pain. And then he’s pulling the door shut behind him, sending Robbie into darkness in the process, with a short movement that somehow seems very final.

Robbie puts his feet to the floor but stills, unsure. He knows, really. That whatever chance he has of getting anything out of James when he comes to Robbie under the cover of comforting darkness, he won’t get any sense out of him now if he goes after him and makes him feel cornered. And he still can’t quite be sure that James actually wants to have this conversation. James has been pulling at Robbie, and then pushing him back, reaching and then withdrawing for so long now that’s it getting hard for Robbie to know how to even trust his instincts about how to handle him anymore.

But it takes only a few minutes before Robbie knows that, even if this is a resoundingly bad idea, he’ll have to pursue him. The shock of realising that James is actually upset about whatever lies between them now, that’s made it more urgent to address this. He can’t leave him like that, sounding like that. Not James.

He’s not surprised to see that the lamps are lit in the living area as he approaches it, following the path that James must be wearing in his carpet tonight. He pushes open the door fully. But the couch is empty. So he’s headed off home? After—that? Well—that’s that then. In the end when Robbie had pushed things just that little bit, James had finally chosen retreat.

He tries to ignore the acute feeling of disappointment that seems to be taking up residence in his chest. Then he spots James’s phone lying on the coffee table and there’s no way his sergeant would forget—Ah. He’s probably gone outside to indulge his habit. Best leave him to it. Because it’s likely not a nicotine craving driving him outside right now. There are odd times when James’s smoke breaks have less to do with the cigarette and more to do with his innate drive to remove himself from a situation that’s beginning to overwhelm him, until he reconstructs enough of his defences. All right, so. Let him come back in his own time. Let him come right back to Robbie. If he will now.

And a short time later, back in bed, Robbie hears the door to his flat ease open and soft footsteps retreat down the hall as James returns to his own bed for the night on Robbie’s couch. Then, after a moment, there’s the short click of a lamp being turned off and the slight creak of the couch as James must be settling down again.

It’s the most comfortingly familiar sequence of sounds.

It isn’t a set of sounds that Robbie had been aware of hearing before, but it must be familiar from other nights. It must have somehow engrained itself before now on Robbie’s sleep-befuddled brain. They’re the type of half-heard sounds, like heavy rain on a cold winter’s night, that made you settle deeper into your bed, into sleep.

There’s precious little chance of Robbie getting to sleep now though. He’s begun to wonder whether this odd advance-retreat battle that James has been engaging in over the past few months, like an unsure general marshalling his troops—well, maybe it isn’t so much a frustrating interplay between the two of them, but more of a battle that James is having with himself.

 

 

5am:

“Robbie—”

There’s enough illumination for Robbie to get a proper look at his sergeant’s face at last as he sinks down rather abruptly on the bed. The sunlight has started to filter through the curtains sometime during the past hour. Robbie’s been abstractedly watching its progress across his bedroom floor. He’s just been waiting. And thinking. He peers at James now. _Christ, the lad_ _looks awful._ “James, how are you sleeping in between these bedside visits?”

“I just set the alarm on my phone.”

“Not what I asked.”

“Sir?”

Robbie pushes himself up into a sitting position. The peacefully muddled thinking of the night about James’s daft fussing suddenly clarifies into a sharper concern about why the hell James is actually persisting with these checks. Much as the sunlight has unfortunately vanquished the last of that comfortable, obscuring darkness where their conversations about other matters could safely develop.  But the first priority, as the look of James is driving home to him, is this concussion debacle.

“Okay, enough. Seriously, James. I didn’t hit my bloody head. I wasn’t knocked out, not even for a moment. Give over, now.”

“You were, though, you were lying still for ages.”

“James. I fell. I lay for a moment to get me breath back. I saw you clock that I’d fallen and I watched you come running. Where’s the ages, in that? Where’s the gap in that timeline for me to be knocked out?”

And that finally seems to get through to James. Just as, as he says it, Robbie finally understands what’s really happened here, himself. He watches it gradually dawn on James that his whole perception of Robbie’s fall had been coloured by what it had felt like to him. Then he sees the first signs of embarrassment start, and hurriedly intervenes.

“If you’d gone down like that, lad, I’d’ve had a nasty moment too.” _Daresay it might’ve have felt like an age for me to get over to you as well._

“Why did you let me wake you?”

 _Let_ him? Bloody hell. “I didn’t figure it out properly till just now. Sorry.” He truly is. Thinking it was pure bloody-mindedness on his sergeant’s part when it was James feeling something else entirely. And—well, he’d become sort of distracted thinking about many other aspects of his complicated young sergeant too, hadn’t he.

“Well, I’m the one who should apologise, sir.” James voice is as stiff as his posture. Tension has seeped right into him as he sits there, but not right beside Robbie any more. He's managed to retract into himself, without actually moving back, so he somehow feels not close enough now. “I’ll leave you to rest undisturbed, then.”

Robbie grabs his arm. “You’re not going anywhere. Come on now. Get some sleep.”

He feels another pang of regret—or something akin to it—when James gently tugs his arm away from his grasp. But damned if the lad doesn’t just rise and pad around to the other side of the bed.

“That’s it,” Robbie manages, as casually as possible, as James settles the long warm length of himself under the sheet and shuffles a little, getting comfortable, right here in Robbie’s bed. “You try and sleep.”

 _If you’re lucky, I won’t even wake you for reassurance with pointless questions about your own name._ Robbie gives a deep sigh at his own stupidity. James, now settled on the pillow beside his, tilts his head towards him questioningly.

“I’m all right _._ I keep telling you.” _You just got a fright._ _And then you made it far worse by looking up worst-case scenarios._ “Go on. Just—let go of it now.”

It takes a moment before James’s eyes drift shut and the lines in his forehead start to smooth out. Good. He looks shattered. Robbie should leave him be now, let him rest. He should let James have his bed, of course. He can get up—

He looks at James again.

Or maybe he can just stay here. Would James mind if he woke to find Robbie still here? Would it throw him into full defensive manoeuvres? He’s just settled into Robbie’s bed as promptly as if he’d simply been waiting to be asked—Was _that_ partly what he was at last night? Not just checking Robbie hadn’t succumbed to whatever catastrophes must have been plaguing James’s ever over-active mind, but—all that settling on the bed, against Robbie, in the dark—had he been wanting to stay?

James, lying on his back, shuffles just a little closer now. Then, in one abrupt movement, he rolls over on his side, towards Robbie. He does seem to be seeking Robbie as he drowses off _._ Maybe he’s still seeking the reassurance. Or maybe— _is_ he seeking Robbie? He’s keeping those long limbs of his just about back so there’s no actual contact, but he’s somehow landed up pretty close for all that.

The sunlight is reaching further and claiming James’s warm-gold tousled hair. There’s a hint of golden stubble on his jawline too, Robbie can see, this close up _._ The look of him like that tugs once more at the edges of Robbie’s memory.

He must’ve had a rotten night. Winding himself up with whatever’s on that internet about concussion and thinking Robbie was at risk of all sorts and coming in on the dot of the hour to check. And Robbie not exactly being very accommodating. James should’ve said—explained what he was at. Although—hold on, he had. Repeatedly. Oh, sod it. Robbie had thought that was part of his bloody stubborn arguing. He looks at James, whose breathing seems to be evening out now, and shakes his head silently at his oblivious sergeant. There’s not many people would do that. It’s not even the first all-nighter James has quietly pulled on Robbie's behalf—

And _that’s_ where that picture is from— it’s from how James had looked, that early morning when Robbie had come in to find that his sergeant had simply decided that Robbie being troubled over how an old case had ended was enough reason for James to—and then he’d turned his back with that tousled hair and said— _Well, you thought something wasn’t right…_

He hasn’t turned his back this time. But it’s a funny posture he’s in for someone who’s falling asleep—to take up so little space. And yet be so warmly, undeniably, distractingly right there, taking all your focus so you don’t want to look away. And it’s just like the way he’s been acting—seeking Robbie out while still holding back. Robbie’s not sure he can take much more of that now. But there’s nothing he can do about it, is there? He’s somehow missed an opportunity during the past few hours. Maybe more than one opportunity. And when James wakes he’ll have all his defences well in order again anyway. James isn’t going to give him a better way in than he had last night.

It draws a feeling, down on Robbie, which cuts into him strangely like a loss. When it’s something that’s he’s never had to lose, really, just a chance he’d have given a fair bit to have.

Because he’s understanding, quite acutely now, what this reaching-withholding act of James’s has been about—James has been half-offering him something but then retracting it, so many times. Retracting it before Robbie could see the shape of the offer and understand. And what he’s been offering is his whole warm, loyal self. Just not offering obviously enough so that Robbie could be sure. Not clearly enough so that James would have to risk the exposure and rejection he must have expected. Not definitely enough so that Robbie could see the offer and not be confused that many times by the inevitable withdrawal. 

He’d found it generally easier to just push Robbie towards Laura instead, and see what happened. Just like Robbie had told himself it was best for James to have a young partner, someone his own age—

Robbie rolls over onto his side himself, facing James, creating as little disruption as possible in the still of this bed, in the early Saturday morning quiet of this room. James doesn’t stir. Robbie balances himself on one elbow, studying him. Why in God’s name _would_ a lad like him want—He finds himself reaching out a hand to push back one of those unruly strands of hair. Then he pulls back, indecisive. It’s not really right to do that when James is unaware. To reach out like that and—

“’Mm not asleep,” comes the mumble from James, his eyes seemingly still closed.

Oh, Christ.

“So you can do that. If you want,” James says, still without opening his eyes. But he’s not half as out of it as he’s making out, is he? 

Robbie reaches back out and starts to move his fingers gently through James’s hair, just tucking strands of it back, with his thumb moving against James’s forehead. Slowly, experimentally, tidying it up. Something James can still object to if Robbie’s got this wrong. But he keeps quite still otherwise, not moving back to allow any small increase in the small gap between them. And he just watches James’s expression. If there’s the slightest hint of him withdrawing now—

“I think you really have hit your head,” James mumbles. But then he presses his lips together as if he’s fighting back a smile. His hair tangles gently with the ends of Robbie’s fingers. And it’s not enough. Robbie flexes his fingers in, pressing hard against James’s scalp. James’s eyes startle open and he looks right into Robbie’s waiting gaze.

“James. Lad, what would you want with your old governor, eh? I’m hardly—”

James’s face opens in relief, as if he’s almost just been waiting to be asked. “This,” he breathes, and he bows his head in to press a warm kiss to Robbie’s mouth. Then he drops his head back and waits, his eyes seeking Robbie's, just asking—Robbie gets a hand to the back of his neck and pulls him gently back in.

It’s deliciously sleepy kissing. He’s kissing James slowly and letting James’s mouth linger on his before Robbie moves slightly to recapture him and just enjoy the sensation with a feeling of pure release. Kissing James—it _is_ different and it’s bloody great. All the sensations from over the years when James has leaned his warm self trustingly, casually and rather contentedly against Robbie, they’re stirring in Robbie’s memory now along with those intriguing sensations from last night of James’s warm body touching against his in the dark on this bed, and they’re all distilling themselves into this warm kiss. Robbie doesn’t want this to stop. By rights, this should be raising all sorts of questions in his head, and it’s not. It feels more like he’s found a few answers at last.

“This what it’s all been about, eh?” he asks, when James finally presses one last firm kiss to his mouth, and drops back again, his eyes searching Robbie’s silently once again. “The way you push at me an’ Laura?”

James grimaces a little. “I know it doesn’t make much sense.”

It might to Robbie, though—James just didn’t think this would happen, did he? That’s why he’s never properly said anything. So he’d felt safer when he thought Robbie was finally with Laura. He’d been able to relax with the fear of discovery gone and the almost-relief probably of relinquishing any lingering hope. And then recently, with that protection rather suddenly gone, and Laura finally off the scene in that way, he’d struggled to get his own defences back up and he’d given in to spending more time and doing more things with Robbie. And for Robbie. But constantly tried to stop himself from feeling anything more at the same time. Even now, doubt is already starting to cloud his eyes in the face of Robbie’s silence.

 “Is this really okay?” he asks suddenly, seemingly needing to check.

“Aye. It’s a whole lot more than okay.” Robbie feels the best way to get that across is just to resume, so he leans back in. The kissing progresses in rather less lingering, rather more heated fashion this time, hopefully driving the last hesitations from James’s mind, just as it brings relief to Robbie, and when James drops his head down onto Robbie’s shoulder, Robbie delivers a kiss to that vulnerable snatch of skin behind his ear, briefly experiencing the softness of that hair at last against his own cheek.

James gives a rather interested humming noise and starts to apply himself in an intriguing fashion to finding spots to kiss around the region of Robbie’s neck, diligently searching out particular places that might elicit the most reaction. Now that’s new—having stubble rasp a little against your own morning-rough cheek. That’s interesting—that’s—Oh, Christ, he’s that good at finding the right spot—But Robbie needs to call a halt to this. After the night that James has just spent. He needs to get it across that this is not a one-way system here—all this carefully masked, seemingly casual concern for Robbie’s wellbeing, so well hidden under the guise of James just being a stubborn-minded sod. He’s not letting James just move right past what he’s done last night. And not just last night, all those little gestures over the years. He can’t let him feel that it’s all right if he supplies all the concern.  As if he’s never been expecting to get cared about right back. It may have taken a while to put all this together, but Robbie’s worked it out now. And he’s a bit heartsore at the thought that James may have been silently hoping, and never thinking his feelings will be noticed. And yet always just proceeding to give Robbie anything he thought Robbie needed all the same.

“No,” he says, shifting his head away and catching James’s rather indignant gaze with his own. “Later. When we wake up. Come on now, you, go to sleep. You’ve been fretting all night.”

“I’m not going to _sleep,”_ James is incredulous. He is, though. Robbie gets an arm under him and pulls him in, right close, settling James lying on his front now, with his head on Robbie’s chest. James seems to sink into that position rather easily. Robbie tightens an arm firmly around him, an instruction, he hopes, and a reassurance that he won’t be going anywhere. He feels James start to relax a bit further into him already. Robbie has to tilt his head now to see his face. It looks like the tension is ebbing right out of him. That’s more like it.

“Comfy?”

“It wouldn’t be possible to be any comfier,” James assures him. “But still not going to sleep—”

“Aye. I know.” He delivers a kiss onto the top of James’s head just to let him know it’s still fine.

“And you can just consider this a temporary lull in the proceedings,” James’s slowed-down voice informs him after a bit.

“All right.” Sounds good to Robbie. He’ll be actually looking forward to waking up this time, so.

James moves just a little, getting his own arm that bit further around Robbie, moving his thigh a little on top of Robbie’s now. He’s somehow managing to spread himself gradually more on top of Robbie with each little casual movement. It’s becoming that bit harder for Robbie to hold to his resolution to put the need for James to sleep first. Because it’s all going to get ruddy interesting after James has had a proper rest, if this little prelude is anything to go by.

It’s a few minutes before James inevitably starts up again, in a rather tangled murmur: “A long, long sleep, a famous sleep, That makes no show for dawn…” But the rest of that somewhat incoherent speech seems to drift off, much as James does. He’s actually fallen asleep mid-quote? God, that’s worrying. He must be beyond exhausted to miss the rest of a quoting opportunity. Robbie frowns down at him and then takes his time gauging the look on James’s face. Oh. Or maybe he’s just content?

Considering the night that’s been in it, Robbie feels oddly rested. His own mind seems to have quietened right down in the warmth and silence of this room. With all those troublesome wonderings finding resolution after all in the simple reality of James lying right against him, so very comfortably.  All he can hear now is James’s steady breath, in time with the rise and fall of his chest against Robbie’s. And Robbie has an armful of warm, sleeping James growing trustingly heavier now, holding him firmly in place. It’s dead peaceful.

Robbie will be quite content to just lie here for a bit, savouring this, and keep watch over his awkward sod of a sergeant as he finally finds rest from all his cares. He reckons it’s his turn now, anyway.

**Author's Note:**

> James was attempting to recite _A Long, Long Sleep, A Famous Sleep_ by Emily Dickinson.


End file.
